


The Variable

by slightlyjillian



Category: Moon Child (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-05
Updated: 2010-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 17:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyjillian/pseuds/slightlyjillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He loved Taiwan and had chosen</i> her <i>over living his own life.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Variable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lauraorganasolo](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lauraorganasolo).



> -written in 2004. And, I've always like _that guy_. Y'know. The complicated one.

He met his own eyes in the mirror as he adjusted the collar of his suit. Clean-cut hair, iron pressed, business fashionable, respected. Son knew he had skills that Chan needed, and the prestige was only a façade. But if pretending everything would be okay led to something good, decent, normal, then it was worth the effort.

He washed his hands, looking away from the mirror and watchful that the water didn't splash over the cuffs. No matter. No matter how many times he washed his hands, he still remembered what they looked like covered in blood. He used his short nails to scratch the soap deeper into his skin.

Immediately, he calmed himself and the red sore lines along the backs of his hands began to fade.

"Son." A sharp call as the door to the men's room opened. "What's the deal? Did that guy intimidate you that much?" It was Sammy. The portly Taiwanese had been trying to grow facial hair and the few wiry strands were long enough that Son could stare at them from across the room. Sammy had treated Son well at the beginning, when no one doubted his loyalty. When they all recognized that Son was the strongest. But now—after that guy, of all people, simply waltzed into their territory with his lazy brother and new foreign lackey, Son had to keep his hands from trembling at the sight.

He didn't want to name the emotion. It wasn't fear. But how could he explain that to Sammy and the others? Simply laugh it off. Explain that he was joking around with Shou. He hadn't been terrified for his life.

"No, no, Sammy." Son smiled, knowing that a handsome happy man was what they expected to see. "Did you know he's my brother-in-law? We're always pretending." Son nudged Sammy on the shoulder, pushing him to the side so that he could exit through the door without trying to squeeze past Sammy's excessive beltline. Physically reminding Sammy that the pecking order stood as it had before, with Son at the top.

"Yeah, sure." Sammy plucked at the hairs protruding from his chin. That they didn't peel off was the only evidence that the discomforting beard was real. "One of our girls married him?"

"Didn't you know?" Son called over his shoulder making his way down the dark hall into the main room and the smoke and the alcohol. "It's not a secret. But for each transgression against our people that man or my sister makes, I will repay twice over."

Sammy would believe him. Son wasn't sure, however, that he believed himself.

Alone in his apartment, Son would practiced meditation. The posture did strengthen his body, but his spirit never reached the enlightenment that he desperately needed. At night sleep did not come easily. Instead, he found himself imaging reunions with Yi-Che.

He would walk up to her door and knock, but as he lifted his hand, she would open the door first. No one would speak as they recognized each other. Older. But seeing in each other the reflection of their shared parents. Her surprise would wash away into happiness and Son would sigh in relief. Then, then: the child would peek around Yi-Che's skirt.

He knew there was a child. A niece or nephew that he'd never been allowed to meet.

In the dream, it was a girl. Which felt right. She would have a nose like Yi-Che, one that lifted ever so slightly as if constantly sensing and aware. And she would smile, in the broad, easy manner that would recognize them as kin.

The joy of the dream stirred Son into wakefulness, and, as he would stared at the empty wall in a simple and mostly bare room, the knot of loneliness would twist his unsatisfied stomach into true cramps so that he tried pulling up his knees to alleviate the pain. But he had no solutions, and the problem was too complicated to fix by dreaming alone.

Chan said that the problem was the diversity. If unified order could be established then their people would be safe to walk the streets again without worrying that a rejected citizen from another country would immigrate to their homeland, harass their businesses, rape their women. And order was established by eliminating the chaos. Chaos was:

Shou was chaos.

Shou was the unexpected variable.

Son had been ready to die at the beginning of the immigration. He'd seen too much of it. His people were living in poverty. His parents were dead, taken by diseases that understaffed and ill-equipped hospitals could not mend. His sister.

His sister had been painting in the park. She'd been coming home later and later as she was nearly finished. Her wild enthusiasm for life flowed through the strokes of her arm, paint on plaster. He'd often watched her while lying on his back in the grass only dropping his eyes from the brilliant sunset colors of the sky to make sure Yi-Che hadn't been completely absorbed by her enchanted skills. She was the reason he continued to wake up every morning of the nightmare their homeland had become. Her and her art pointed to the future.

Then one day, the local security officers had accosted him holding Son prisoner in his own house while they argued over figures on paper. Yi-Che had been alone in the park. The irony cut his heart when the very authorities that should have been protecting his sister were preoccupied with collecting the security taxes on Son and Yi-Che's home.

He couldn't get her to tell him what happened exactly, but he didn't need her words in order to know. He knew Yi-Che better than anyone. But he wasn't to hear her voice, and she retreated so much that even as he followed her faithfully as a shadow he could see the weariness in her steps and the growing distance between her heart and her art. She was dying, and he couldn't reach her.

While she retreated into invisibility, Son's heart started to harmonize with a suicidal wish of it's own. Revenge.

Chaos.

And Shou.

The synchronized release of bullets, the snapping of the safety, the heartbeat rhythm of the triggers: he's felt a strange trinity when they appeared. Later they told their names. Shou: boyish personality, sloth like posture, and almost delicate features. But Son had seen the young man pump lead into their enemies with an almost berserk smile and relaxed jaw. Shou deferred to Kei, which did surprise Son at first. But the smaller man's aura of power was nearly tangible once the adrenaline had relaxed from Son's system.

The moon had seemed so large the night that Son took them home with him. Yi-Che moved with a determination that had seemed impossible to regain. He felt laughter and emotion bubbling with a fearful intensity he knew was from a lack of feeling anything for countless days. Even the jealousy that gnawed when he saw Yi-Che smiling for other men was a welcome sensation.

When he allowed himself, Son knew that chaos had brought them their first spring breath of hope. Destroying the lackluster order of what had become a routine of dullness and pain.

Chan easily dismissed Son's recollections. Order brought simplicity back, he reasoned. Fight them, before they change our way of life. Chan repeated as a mantra, "Chaos brings death."

"Chaos brings change," Son had muttered once, feeling a fiber of rebellion when Chan dismissed Son offhand. "Isn't a change what we need?"

"Change to what?" Chan's tone had turned almost fatherly, but low and refuting questions. "Our heritage? Our home was a lovely place before. Change is what killed your parents, Son. You simply aren't remembering back far enough, boy." The last word was said affectionately enough that Son wondered if he should feel remorse for challenging his mentor, "Let us bring things back to normal."

Chaos brought change. After all, it was only after meeting Kei, Shou, and then Toshi that Son was catapulted to the decision that would send them all to their different destinies.

Their dreams were ever more lofty and their affections were as quick and surging as a water spring's mouth. Son's face never grew weary of smiling so that he hardly recognized himself when he'd catch sight of his reflection in a mirror or an undamaged storefront window. And from that height of happiness they each fell shattered at the corpse. And trust was splintered when Son had a glimpse of . . .

He was back in the main room of the bar, Chan laughing loudest at some story told just before Son reappeared from his escape to the restroom. The smoke had gotten thicker since Son left. Or had his head simply cleared from it? Somehow, he felt as if the very oxygen he'd been breathing had drugged him into a stupor and Shou's presence had been a slap to ignite an inhalation of something fresh. Renewing.

"Son, Son!" Chan waved him over to them. Once again the others differentially shuffled to allow Son the best seat. His honor was intact. Son realized that he'd been afraid he wouldn't live through the night.

Did that matter to him anymore?

The thoughts that haunted him in the shadows of the hallway afforded no answers.

Chaos. Order. Neither was a certainty.

Chan slapped his arm, and Son felt bile rise in his throat at the unwanted familiarity. He respected. He had trusted Chan. But now:

Now he missed Yi-Che feverishly. He felt the back of his neck burning and sweat began to cause his shirt to stick against his skin. And he had lost the opportunity to be an uncle. Perhaps in choosing, he'd forgotten how to truly live simply. Day by day. With those he cared for most.

"Listen to me," Chan was saying. Son wanted to put his hands over his ears, but they were all watching him. He could sense their eyes, looking to see what he was going to do after Shou's performance. They all thought Shou was a fool. Sammy was poking his elbow into the men standing around the couch and making them laugh.

"Listen to me," Chan said again, and the others' voices diminished. "Our authority has become absolute. All that remains is to brush aside that man and his ridiculous excuse for liberty. We bring liberty to those that deserve it! Our people."

Son couldn't bring himself to join in the cheers; hiding best he could behind a smile while the sweat trickled down his back. The power of their volume hid the chaotic heartbeat that Son knew couldn't be visible although it felt as if his soul had been bared open. He loved Taiwan and had chosen her over living his own life.

It was too late. He would never escape.

But there was one dream he had left, and, for just the one, he would humble himself and reach out for it. He wanted to see Yi-Che once more. And meet the child. The ones that he would die for, whether he accomplished anything in his death, or not.

Even if it meant petitioning, begging, at the feet of Chaos.


End file.
